Modigliani's largest painting sold for $157 million at Sotheby's: it's a record

The Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) by Amedeo Modigliani (Leghorn, 1884 - Paris, 1920) was auctioned for $157.2 million (about €131 million).The sale, which took place yesterday at Sotheby ’s in New York, set a record for the most expensive painting ever sold by the British auction house. The estimate for the painting, the largest nude painting as well as the largest known painting by Modigliani (it is 89.5 by 146.4 cm), was 150 million. It is a documented work: initially owned by the writer Léopold Zborowski (Warsaw, 1889 - Paris, 1932), who bought it directly from the Leghorn painter, with whom he was a friend (and in fact Modigliani portrayed him several times), it then passed into the collection of the Parisian dealer Jonas Netter in 1926. Through ownership passages it entered a U.S. collection from which it left in 2003 to be auctioned at Christie’s (for the sum of $26.9 million). The last owner then decided to put it up for sale again through Sotheby’s. The painting, moreover, had to undergo censorship after it was exhibited: it had been deemed too risqué.

In the same session that set Modigliani’s record, Sotheby’s also sold a 1932 work by Pablo Picasso, Le Repos, for $36.9 million: it is a work depicting Picasso’s muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter. Claude Monet ’s Matinée sur la Seine from 1896 also sold for $20.5 million.

Image: Amedeo Modigliani, Nu couché (sur le côté gauche) (1917; oil on canvas, 89.5 x 146.4 cm; Private collection)

Modigliani's largest painting sold for $157 million at Sotheby's: it's a record

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